#31. Your school is thrilled with its new telescope and all the things the students have learned about the sky. One student has found that the speed of light is measured at 300 million meters per second. Now all the students want to find how many minutes it takes for light to come from the sun that is 93 million miles away. How many minutes does it take for light to get from the sun to the Earth?

Question

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A
30.8 minutes

B
308 minutes

C
8.3 minutes

D
83 minutes

E
3.8 minutes

Answer 1

To determine how many minutes it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth, we can use the following conversion and calculation steps:

1. Convert the distance from miles to meters:

   • 1 mile is approximately 1,609.34 meters.
   • Therefore, 93 million miles is: \[ 93,000,000 \text{ miles} \times 1,609.34 \text{ meters/mile} \approx 149,668,992,000 \text{ meters} \]

2. Calculate the time it takes for light to travel that distance:

   • The speed of light is 300 million meters per second (or \(3 \times 10^8\) m/s).
   • Time (\(t\)) can be calculated using the formula: \[ t = \frac{\text{distance}}{\text{speed}} = \frac{149,668,992,000 \text{ meters}}{300,000,000 \text{ m/s}} \approx 498.89664 \text{ seconds} \]

3. Convert seconds to minutes:

   • Since there are 60 seconds in a minute: \[ \text{Minutes} = \frac{498.89664 \text{ seconds}}{60} \approx 8.31494 \text{ minutes} \]
   • Rounded, this is approximately 8.3 minutes.

Based on this calculation, the answer is:

C. 8.3 minutes